Defending torture sign of moral bankruptcy

JIM WATSON, AFP/Getty Images

Director of Central Intelligence Agency John Brennan takes questions from reporters during a press conference Dec. 11 at CIA headquarters in McLean, Va. He acknowledged some agency interrogators used "abhorrent" unauthorized techniques in questioning terrorism suspects after the 9/11 attacks.

It pains me to hear the CIA defend the torture it used, some of which we now know was far more horrendous than even waterboarding.

Throughout my many years, I've heard our politicians, including President George W. Bush, claim the high ground, saying that unlike the Japanese, Germans, North Koreans and North Vietnamese, the U.S. doesn't torture people.

The severe damage done to our reputation and national psyche by the use of torture was made far worse by the lie that we weren't doing it. And now, CIA officials and their Republican supporters defending the torture is an indication of true moral bankruptcy.